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Going green will not be optional in Cambridge, Mass., if the Cambridge Climate Congress has its way. It will be mandatory.

There will be congestion pricing to reduce car travel. Curbside parking will be eliminated. There will be a carbon tax "of some kind," not to mention taxes on plastic and paper bags. And the Massachusetts city, home of Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, will advocate vegetarianism and veganism, complete with "Meatless or Vegan Mondays."

Those are just some of the proposals put forth by the Congress, which was created in May 2009 to respond to the "climate emergency" plaguing Cambridge. Once the Congress settles on its recommendations, they will submitted to the City Council.

"This emergency is created by the growth of local greenhouse gas emissions despite the urgent warnings of climate scientists that substantial reductions are needed in order to reduce the risk of disastrous changes to our climate," the Climate Congress reported in proposals issued on Jan. 23. "This proposal is made in the belief that an effective local response is, if anything, made more urgent by so far inadequate global agreements and federal policies for emissions reductions. It is made in the belief that our City should lead by example."

While the group's proposals remain a work in a progress, some experts say the potential measures it advocates are "heavy-handed" and incongruous. But others say the city just might be onto something, particularly if the taxes associated with the plan are used to make buildings and transportation more efficient.

Dr. Ken Green, a resident scholar on environment and energy at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative Washington-based think tank, said he found an "overall redundancy" in the proposals, specifically regarding a carbon-based tax coupled with congestion pricing, increased parking meter rates and parking tickets.

"That's just a revenue-raiser for the city," said Green. "There's an overall incoherence of having a carbon tax and three or four indirect taxes."

To best reduce emissions in the near-term, Green suggested a revenue-neutral carbon tax, meaning that little -- if any -- of the funds raised would be retained by municipal government. The vast majority under such a plan would be returned to the public.

"It creates an incentive to become more energy efficient to either avoid the tax or keep as much of any rebate as possible," Green said. "But if they do the [carbon] tax, they should get rid of almost all of the other things. If the point is to put a price on carbon, pick one price, make it transparent and then get rid of the other regulations, which end up overpricing carbon. So if you had your carbon tax, you don't need your congestion pricing because people are already paying the tax in their gasoline."

Green also said the proposal to ban the production and distribution of plastic bags and bottled water in city limits is as "heavy-handed as government can get" and questioned Cambridge's proposal to institute disincentives for the purchase of non-regional food.

"Trying to grow something out of season in a greenhouse locally may produce more greenhouse gas emissions than having the same food shipped in from a place where it grows naturally," he said. "Studies do not come down uniformly on the side that local is better."

But Richard Rood, a professor of atmospheric, oceanic, and space sciences at the University of Michigan, praised Cambridge's proposal to create a "temperate zone" program, in which building are neither heated nor cooled during the fall and spring.

"That is a place where you might make a difference," said Rood, who writes a blog for Weather Underground.

He also praised the city's proposal to advocate vegetarianism and veganism.

"From a climate point of view, eating less meat would have a climate impact," said Rood, citing increased deforestation, methane production, fertilizer use and greenhouse gases associated with maintaining that land. "Eating less meat is for the environment in many ways.

"A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murder is less to fear"

Very impressive to see a locality taking reposnibility to protect the environment. A good model for other communities!

Thanks for posting it!

Treat the earth well: it was not given to you by your parents, it was loaned to you by your children. We do not inherit the Earth from our Ancestors, we borrow it from our Children. ~ Ancient American Indian Proverb

I must have missed the part about veganism becoming a religion, or even any requirements whatsoever in regards to veganism.

Could you quote any requirements associated with veganism?

Thanks!

Treat the earth well: it was not given to you by your parents, it was loaned to you by your children. We do not inherit the Earth from our Ancestors, we borrow it from our Children. ~ Ancient American Indian Proverb

Sep 18, 2008, Scientists at Oxford University in England have discovered that a meat-free diet may be bad for your brain.

Researchers found that people who adopt a vegan or vegetarian diet are six times more likely to sustain brain shrinkage than meat eaters due to the former's lack of Vitamin B-12, which is found in meat, fish and dairy products including cheese. http://www.mainstreetmeats.com/blogs...-Small-Brains/

Scientists at Oxford University in England have discovered that a meat-free diet may be bad for your brain.

Researchers found that people who adopt a vegan or vegetarian diet are six times more likely to sustain brain shrinkage than meat eaters due to the former's lack of Vitamin B-12, which is found in meat, fish and dairy products including cheese.

So Who do you believe? Keep in mind we have teeth for chewing meat and if you're a Christian you will remember Jesus would eat fish.

Also keep in mind that anything connected in any way with the environmentally retarded movement is most likely a HOAX, since we have those environmental wackos fighting Solar plants in CA. & NV and wind all over the place. They used to talk about how good these systems were, but now they fight them because if they ae built the Environmental ists will not have a reason to make huge money for those who run the HOAXES for profit at the top.

Most of knew before the study that Vegans had little brains. I personally wondered if they any at all.
Have to run my Steak is ready.

No, I won't waste my time...
But it is a cult.....
I do enjoy vegetarians who eat chicken though....

Just pointing out that despite the misleading headline, there are no requirements of any kind regarding veganism........

Treat the earth well: it was not given to you by your parents, it was loaned to you by your children. We do not inherit the Earth from our Ancestors, we borrow it from our Children. ~ Ancient American Indian Proverb